Low cost Carriers
In the good old days it was easy. Most countries had a national airline: KLM was the Dutch one,LOT the Polish national airline, and so on. The exception to this was the US, where different major aurlines such as Pan Am, American Airlines, or Delta, competed openly for clients. Most of these airlines offered similar products at more or less the same prices. Of course, some companies concentrated more on short-haul, domestic flights - the sort of flight where you are only just in the air when the cabin crew are telling you to get ready for landing. Others like Qantas became famous for their long-haul, intercontinental routes, offering free stopovers to make eighteen-hour flights more attractive to customers.